There’s something universal about this story. Muslim man marries non-Muslim woman; much protest by the woman’s family and community follows; that, in turn, fetches a belligerent response; the story ends with the woman meekly ‘admitting’ she has acted on her own, that there has been no coercion, that it is love for her man which has made her forsake faith and family.

In the days when Egypt was yet to be run over by the Muslim Brotherhood and secular Arab nationalism still held sway, clashes between Coptic and Muslim Egyptians were commonplace. More often than not the street battles would follow a Coptic woman marrying a Muslim man. She was abducted and forcibly converted, the Copts would insist; not true, the Muslims would scream back.